


Heat

by lexosaurus



Series: Giveaway Phiccs [2]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Angst, Fire, Gen, What can I say except you're welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:01:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24627463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lexosaurus/pseuds/lexosaurus
Summary: It was too hot. There was too much smoke.He couldn’t breathe.Jazz…“Please…”
Series: Giveaway Phiccs [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1327478
Comments: 8
Kudos: 100





	Heat

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is my gift to tumblr user @omgiamwish for completing all 31 days of Dannymay 2020! I absolutely adored all the art they made, and when I saw one in particular, I couldn't help myself from writing a fic on it!
> 
> I based this fic off of this piece of art: https://omgiamwish.tumblr.com/post/619460939872354304/dannymay2020-day-29-heat

The first thing Danny registered was the smoke.

“Five more minutes,” he grumbled, pulling the blanket over his face. It was too early for this. Goddamnit, it was a Saturday too, wasn’t it? What the hell were his parents doing?

He tried to force himself back asleep because he would be damned if he woke up at what-the-hell-o’clock because of whatever stunt his parents were pulling, but for some reason his body refused to cooperate.

But why? It was just a little bit of smoke...

Wait.

A high-pitched scream sounded from another room.

Smoke.

Danny bolted up, throwing the blanket off him and shooting out of bed. His eyes darted around him only to be met with black waves of smoke billowing in from his door.

_What…?_

He stumbled to his door and went to grab the handle, only to pull his hand away hissing at the contact.

The door handle was hot. _It was hot!_

Danny stepped back, coughing. What was happening?

His throat was suddenly tight in a way that made Danny unsure if the smoke was to blame. He stared down at his hands with wide eyes. This couldn’t be happening.

The air was growing denser by the second. And it was hot, so hot. Vaguely, he could see some red and orange flicker in the corner of his room, but he _couldn’t_ look to see what it was because it hurt to breathe and the air was hot and it was pressing down on Danny and choking him and _he needed to get out of here._

Someone screamed again— _Jazz—_ and Danny darted through the door, transforming into Phantom as he did—

_Bad idea._

The heat increased tenfold, and for a moment Danny was blinded by the clouds of smoke. He coughed and looked around, his eyes watering. He blinked and looked around, his stomach dropping as his worst fears were becoming a reality:

Fire. The house was on fire.

He coughed again, nearly collapsing into the carpet. It was too hot. Phantom may not have needed to breathe as much as Fenton would, but Phantom had an ice core. His ghost half didn’t do well in the heat.

He needed to get out of here. 

“Jazz!” Danny yelled, staggering forward into the hallway. 

The fire licked at the walls, devouring anything in its path with a verocaty that Danny had never seen before. It reached out to him with spindly fingers, desperate to grasp onto his clothes and skin. 

It was too hot.

_“JAZZ!”_

He spun around. Where were his mom and dad? Where were the firemen? Why wasn’t the fire alarm going off?

The fire roared in his ears, and the ceiling creaked above him, planks of wood scattering onto the ground. His core...

_No…_

Danny threw himself against Jazz’s door, but it didn’t budge. 

“Jazz, please!”

He closed his eyes and focused. His core was vibrating, _begging_ him to _get out of here_ but he fought against it, willing himself intangible as he fell through Jazz’s door.

The door burst into flames.

Danny scrambled away from the fire and demanded his shaking body upright, only to immediately regret it as he doubled over, coughing.

“Jazz!” he wheezed. 

The fire surrounded him, dancing around as if it were mocking him. It spun and wove its way to and fro throughout the room, inviting him into its arms.

No...he needed to...he needed to find Jazz.

But through his blurred vision, he surveyed the room. She wasn’t here. _She wasn’t here._

The ceiling groaned, finally giving into its battle against the heat. It collapsed, falling around Danny, smashing into walls and floors like a tidal wave. Danny’s hand shot up and, with the last of his reserve, he forced an ecto-shield over his body.

A beam swung down from the ceiling, shattering his shield and knocking his body across the room. A searing burn overtook his torso, and he curled in on himself, gasping as he lay on Jazz’s floor.

It was too hot. There was too much smoke.

He couldn’t breathe.

Jazz…

_“Please…”_

It was so..so…

The window shattered, and Danny’s eyes widened as he saw the fire instantly ravage the rest of the room. Time slowed down and, without thinking, he pushed himself over the ledge of what used to be Jazz’s room.

He hit the ground _hard,_ wheezing for the breath that was knocked out of him and blinking away the black spots that were trying to overtake his vision. His fists gripped the grass. Lights flashed around him and in the distance he heard sirens.

“Phantom?” a stranger’s voice called out from behind him.

Danny closed his eyes, ignoring the man. His core trembled under his skin and he clawed at his chest, begging for his core to understand that he wasn’t in the fire anymore _it was okay please stop please stop_ but deep down he knew that this wasn’t from the fire.

_Please…_

It was too hot.

\---

“You switched majors? But you were so into sports in high school! Hell, you were my best teammate.” 

“Yeah, I wasn’t sure about electrical engineering at first, but my professors have been awesome and the classes are actually really cool. My parents are still pushing for me to be a doctor, though. You know how they can be.”

“Eh, screw ‘em. No offense, Kwan, but you’d cry at every patient.”

Kwan snorted. “That’s fair. So what about you, Mr. High School Quarterback? You still going for sports science?”

“Yeah,” Dash said, rounding the street corner. “But you know, it’s funny. When I was younger I always pictured myself as a football coach or something like that, but honestly I’ve really gotten into the PT side of things. I’ll probably still get my athletic trainer certification next year—I might as well—but I think I want to go more into injury rehabilitation and stuff like that.”

“I think you’d be a great physical therapist. You should totally go for it.”

“Thanks, man.”

Dash glanced over at Kwan, marveling at the changes in the other boy. Though Kwan was always outwardly confident in high school, Dash had been close enough with him at the time to be able to pick out the subtle insecurity lingering just behind his eyes. But that insecure arrogance was long gone and now replaced with a different kind of confidence, one far more relaxed and approachable. His stride had even changed, from the rigid linebacker to an easygoing college undergrad.

Kwan rambled on about some new ecto-friendly technology, and Dash couldn’t help but notice how his eyes lit up in excitement. But then that expression flashed into one of shock before settling on something far more somber. He raised his arm out in front of him and said, “Look, he’s still there.”

Dash’s eyes trailed back out to the line of houses in front of him, sweeping the seemingly normal neighborhood before landing on one home that sent ice curling through his veins. “Wow. He is.”

“It’s been five years now, right?”

“I think so.”

“I wonder if he’s left that spot at all since then.”

Dash shook his head. His throat felt tight. “Doubt it. Remember when the mayor tried to get him out of there? Phantom went totally berserk. Mr. Masters even managed to track down some of Phantom’s old ghost friends too, but it didn’t work.”

“It’s so sad.” 

“Yeah.” Dash stared at the tumbled mass of broken brick. No one could touch it, not with Phantom guarding it like his existence depended on it.

...and maybe it did.

Phantom was calm now, that much Dash could see. He sat cross-legged hovering just above the pile of what used to be the Fenton’s house. His back was towards the road, and from a distance he still resembled the protective angel that used to guard the town. But Dash knew, and everyone else in Amity Park knew, that if they got too close to the old home, then like a switch Phantom would turn into a rabid animal, attacking everything and everyone on site.

No, it was best to leave him be. The town had already fenced off the property, preventing drunk teens with a death wish from becoming the next breaking news headline. 

After all, Amity Park didn’t have a guardian protecting its citizens anymore.

“Do you think he thinks he can still save them? The Fentons?” Kwan asked, pulling Dash out of his thoughts.

“I...don’t know. I don’t think anyone really knows what he’s thinking.”

They walked by the house. Even though they were still a sizable distance from Phantom, Dash could still feel the cold otherworldly chill crawl up his arms. He forced his gaze away from the glowing figure, if only as some thinly-veiled attempt to prevent the ghost’s attention.

Not that it would have mattered. Phantom didn’t seem to register _anything_ other than the safety of the burnt pile of rubble. It was like the rest of the world didn’t exist to the ghost.

Dash paused at the next street corner and looked back one more time at the cursed plot of land. From this angle, he could finally see Phantom’s face. His eyes were wide open, glowing, and _empty._ His expression was one of stone. He sat with his hands on his knees, staring at the pile of rubble beneath him.

Dash sighed and turned away. There was nothing he could do. Nothing that anyone else could do.

They moved onto the next block, leaving Phantom behind.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Follow me on tumblr @lexosaurus


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